Farmers were more likely to pray for rainclouds than cloud programs. Yet even rural businesses were not beyond the reach of cloud software providers cultivating the agriculture industry.
After a hard day’s work tending the crops, milking cows and herding livestock, the last thing farmers wanted to do was go through the pile of paperwork at home that came with modern-day farming.
Cloud software could help a farmer to plan their crops or manage livestock for sale and slaughter, assign health and veterinary tasks, and track fertilizer and chemical usage.
Below were a few cloud providers BoxFreeIT came across out in the field.
CloudHerd was a free livestock management application that allowed farmers to manage and trade livestock online. The software extracted details about animal performance and property information that was imported and sold in online auctions. Farmers could also share links to the sale page for other parties to increase sale interest.
Farmflo was founded in 2012 and dug deeper as it managed the farm in the cloud. Features included real time inventory levels, crop locations, weather reports, wastage tracking and calendar planners. Crop timelines allowed farmers to see what even had taken place, track planting, spraying, fertilizer application and harvest.
FarmWizard Ltd was an agriculture software solutions company founded in 2004 that focused on cloud computing technology. Its farming apps included Beef Manager, a beef cattle management software, Milk Manager, dairy cattle management software, Sheep Manager, sheep management software and Global Supply-Chain Manager, a farm planning software. The applications allowed farmers to update and share data with consultants, insurance firms and other relevant parties.
Xero has released a blueprint showing how its online accounting program could assist farms to manage their finances. Farmers could use the software to share financial data with other stakeholders such as financial advisors, banks, off-farm shareholders and rural advisors. Farming providers MyFarm and Cashmanager RURAL were integrating their apps with Xero.